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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Wedding DIY: Placecards

When it came to our wedding, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted for the most part.

I knew what colors I wanted. I knew I wanted to let everyone pick their own dress. I knew what kind of dress I wanted. And I knew what theme I wanted.

What I DIDN'T know, was all of the little items like programs and place cards. I had no freaking clue.

All of my ideas (like most ideas I have) were out of my price range. It just wasn't happening. I loved those cute place card holders that they have but I couldn't justify spending $100 on them. But I wanted to do something different.

So, I set out finding the perfect envelopes in my price range and color theme. Started thinking of how I was going to print them, attach them, etc. And then Big A wanted to know why we weren't just doing the normal cards that everyone else does.

Umm... because I want to do everything different from EVERYONE and be so uber creative that famous people notice my work and then my wedding planning / designing career will take off. I will be the new David Tutera. Duh.

I didn't want this entire wedding to be completely about me. Because honestly, Big A doesn't care about what our place cards look like. BUT, when he would state an opinion like that, I usually followed it. I knew if he mentioned it then it meant at least a little something to him. And although I probably could have done what I wanted anyway, I thought that maybe (just maybe) I shouldn't start off our marriage by ignoring everything he said and doing whatever I wanted anyway.

So... it was back to the drawing board.

I had a slight idea that I was going to incorporate into the idea above, so I decided that I would just go with it, but change the colors a bit to match my own.

So, I headed out to Michaels for my weekly trip. Seriously, they should know my by my first name and dedicate a wing to me I went there so much.

I bought:

1. Silver Blank Folded Cards (it was easier to cut those than paper)

2. Black lace

3. Clear glue

4. Black card stock

5. White card stock

6. Red ribbon

7. Clear sticky dots

1. Use paper cutter to cut cards in half on fold. Then fold paper in half. 2. Cut lace a little longer than the width of card. 3. Use glue to attach the lace at the top of the card. Let sit for a couple minutes. (I attached the tops of a bunch and then glued the rest of the sides later. When the top part was still wet, the lace moved around too much and was a pain in the ass to keep straight)4. Let dry fully. 5. Print names on white card stock. (That was my crazy OCD list of attendees with their meal choice and table) Also, I went to a website and dowloaded the font that I used, and then used it on all the paper stuff. I forget the name of the font, but the website was dafont.com6. Use paper cutter to cut out names and then use sticky dots to attach to black card stock. 7. Cut ribbon so it is long enough to go all the way around the front of the card. Then attach with sticky dot to one side of name plate. 8. Put sticky dot on the other end of the name plate and wrap ribbon around card. Press down.

9. Finished product. (The cards bent a little during the process, so we just stuck them under something heavy for a couple of days until they straightened out)

I then printed out the table names on white card stock and stuck them inside the card. But of course I didn't take a picture because by then I was over it.

Special thanks to my wonderful mother who helped my assemble everything. And dealt with my temper tantrums when I couldn't get the names to print out right, or cut the paper wrong, or "someone" put a name on crooked".

I also put a sticker on the back with their meal choice. It wasn't cute or pretty, just functional, so I definitely don't have pictures of it.

And that's that. They took awhile, but I just did a lot of it bit by bit while watching TV. The big part was getting the names on them. That was a pain in the butt.

BUT... I'm glad that I did it. I love the way they turned out and I am SO glad that they look like a classy DIY project rather than "Oh my god you can totally tell that she made those herself and she sucks at crafts...seriously Martha Stewart should probably punch her in the throat for this monstrosity".

OK... so that was a little dramatic, but I was afraid that after all of that work they wouldn't turn out very well and I had no back-up plan. So thank god for everyone that they turned out well.

And that's how I did our place cards! Keep tuning in to learn more about the lovely projects that I did for the wedding.

First of all, I love them. They turned out gorgeous. I wish we would have done something more like this for our place cards. I just bought some already made ones and wrote everyone's names on them. I wish I would have been more crafty. And I have always wanted to be a wedding/party planner! And I love David Tutera, haha! We should start a business. Let's ditch our boring 8-5 jobs and live the wedding planning dream!